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Russia, UK ready to improve relations — diplomat

On December 22, UK Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson held talks with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov

© Valery Sharifulin/TASS

MOSCOW, December 22. /TASS/. Russian and the United Kingdom are ready to begin to take steps to get out of the dead end in their relations, Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on Friday, commenting on the talks between the two countries’ top diplomats, Sergey Lavrov of Russia and Boris Johnson of the United Kingdom.

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"The topics under discussion were serious. Naturally, they included ways to bring the Russian-UK relations out of the dead end they have been driven to, not by Moscow," she said in an interview with the 60 Minutes program on the Rossiya-1 television channel. "We are ready to begin to take efforts to get them out of it. It implies a range of bilateral problems, and, naturally, international problems, Sergey Lavrov spoke about today, which require involvement of the world’s leading players and, of course, permanent members of the United Nations Security Council."

According to Zakharova, discrepancies, which may be in place, are not a pretext not to develop relations.

Earlier in the day, visiting UK Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson held talks with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov to discuss, along with bilateral issues, problems of the UN Security Council agenda.

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